Kotaro Uchikoshi
|gender=Male |age=42 (born November 17, 1973) |hair=Black |eye=Black |occupation=Game Director Game Producer Scenario Writer Game Designer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotaro_Uchikoshi |status=Alive |relative=Unnamed wife |appearances=''Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors'' (Credits) Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (Credits) |voice=Kotaro Uchikoshi (Japanese) }} Kotaro Uchikoshi is the director and writer of Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, and the upcoming Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma. Background Uchikoshi was born in Higashi-Murayama, Tokyo, Japan on November 17, 1973. The city is in the western part of the Tokyo metro area. KID In 1999, Uchikoshi joined Kindle Imagine Develop (KID) as a scenario writer and game producer. He worked on the company's first big visual novel series, Memories Off, helping write the scenario for the first two games in the series: Memories Off and Memories Off 2nd. It would be in 2000 though, when he would receive his first big break. ''Never 7: The End Of Infinity'' The first game in the Infinity series, and the start of the successful partnership between Uchikoshi (as the scenario and story writer) and director Takumi Nakazawa. It was originally released in 2000 on the Dreamcast in Japan. The game is about a college student named Makoto, who had never attended a single lecture at his school, and as such, he is sent to a strange island to attend an extra seminar. Mysterious deaths start to occur on the island, making Makoto's seminar more dangerous than he would have ever thought. The game was lauded for its story and turned out to be a success, despite only being released in Japan (although there are fan-made English translations). ''Ever 17: The Out Of Infinity'' Coming off of the success of Never 7, KID decides that they want Uchikoshi and his team to make a second installment to the Infinity series. It was originally released in Japan in 2002, and surprisingly, also in the United States in 2005. Besides the Zero Escape series, this would his only game to be released in the U.S. The most successful and well-known game in the series, critics highly praised its characters and plot, and it is considered one of the greatest visual novels of all time. The plot revolves around two protagonists, Takeshi and Kid. These two and five other people are trapped in an underwater theme park called LeMU (located over 50 meters below the surface), and have 119 hours to escape before the surrounding water pressure causes the entire park to collapse. ''Remember 11: The Age Of Infinity'' The third game in the Infinity series, this game was released in Japan in 2004, with Nakazawa writing the majority of the story, and Uchikoshi being a second writter. The plot follows two different points of view: Cocoro Fuyukawa, who is a 20 year old woman majoring in sociology, and Satoru Yukidoh, a 21 year old man majoring in quantum physics. The story takes place in 2011 and 2012. Cocoro is on the way to a mental health institution, when her plane crashes in the mountains. She is able to make it to an emergency cabin, where weird things start happening. On Aosagi Island in 2012, Satoru falls from the SPHIA clock tower and loses consciousness. Satoru wakes up and finds himself in a woman's body. At the same time, Cocoro finds herself in a man's body. Joining Chunsoft and Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors In 2004, Uchikoshi joined Chunsoft as a game designer and scenario writer. Several years later, he came up with the idea of having boys and girls locked together with explosive handcuffs, playing a life-or-death game. This evolved to the later idea of using explosive-triggering bracelets. 999 was released in Japan on December 10, 2009 to lukewarm reception, so Aksys Games came to Chunsoft to ask if they could publish it in the United States. Chunsoft agreed, and Aksys released 999 on November 16, 2010. This would be Uchikoshi's second title to be released in English. The game was met with widespread acclaim, with many people praising the intricate and well-written story. Its accolades include a "Best Story" award from Nintendo Power and "Best Story" from IGN. ''Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward'' Within two years, Uchikoshi had come up with a sequel to 999, which is called Virtue's Last Reward. This was the first title to be branded under the Zero Escape name, and around the time VLR was released in the United States, 999 was reprinted with the Zero Escape logo. Virtue's Last Reward was released in Japan on February 16, 2012 and in the United States on October 23, 2012. Aksys Games had provided an English dub on the North American release, the only release to provide a language other than Japanese. The game was a smash hit, pulling in several accolades such as "Handheld Game Of The Year" by GameSpot, "Best 3DS/DS Story Of 2012" by IGN, and "Best Graphic Adventure Of 2012" and "Best Story Of 2012" by RPGFan. Punchline To be written ''Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma'' On July 3, 2015, Uchikoshi announced the development of Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma at Anime Expo 2015. The game will be released in the summer of 2016 on both the 3DS and the Vita. This game will be released four years after Virtue's Last Reward's release. He stated that the fans are what made this game a reality and their continued support allowed this game to be green lit. Category:999 Production Team Category:VLR Production Team Category:ZTD Production Team